University of Tennessee Athletics
Butch Jones Media Transcript (10.13.15)
October 13, 2015 | Football
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee head coach Butch Jones spoke to reporters on Tuesday, Oct. 13 in the Ray and Lucy Hand Digital Studio.
(Opening Statement)
"Okay, it's good to see everyone. I hope everyone is doing well. Before we get started I'd just like to express a healthy recovery to Nick Chubb, obviously a great, great football player and have a lot of respect for him and want to wish him well in his road to recovery.
"Very, very proud of our players. Again, like I spoke about Saturday night, they really stepped up when you look at all the things that went the way they weren't planned and that's life. Nothing is ever perfect. You have to adapt and adjust and hit adversity head on and have a snap and clear mentality. You look at two plays with the fumble recovery and 96 yards and a punt return for a touchdown, where there is a flag on the play and so you're thinking the play is coming back. All of a sudden, it's picked up and there is a touchdown. Those are back-breakers, not many teams can respond to that. I thought our players responded to that and obviously gave us an opportunity to win, 519 yards of total offense. I thought we had very good balance, the best balance we've had all year with 312 yards passing and 207 rushing the football. Our players stepped up and made critical plays at critical moments of the game.
"What can I say about the individual effort of Joshua Dobbs? He had the will to win and our team fed off of him and they fed off of his energy. We have 19 players from the state of Georgia and all 19 players helped us win that football game and one way, shape, form or another and very very proud of them.
"Moving on to the bye week, it's a very important week for this football team. I've kind of broken it down into two facets, one for the coaching staff and one for the team. And kind of a list of things we need to get accomplished in this bye week for the coaching staff, is first of all self-scout, going back and looking at the first six games and going back and looking at our schemes and looking and evaluating everything. Evaluating our personnel, then it gets into our development, really developing our players over this next week. And then preparing for our next opportunity and obviously the recruiting as well.
"From the team standpoint, first and foremost is getting our health back. I think the bye week is coming at a very very needed time. In terms of our overall health it's been a challenge. It's been physically exhausting and mentally exhausting the first six weeks, so to be able to get our health back is going to be critical. Our overall fundamentals and details of what it takes to play winning football at every position, all nine position groups, and our three units as well and the development of our players and on to our next opponent.
"Before I open it up to questions, kind of an injury update: Shy Tuttle has a broken fibula and an ankle ligament so he will, unfortunately, miss the rest of the year so he'll be out this season. That is a big big blow to our football team. I love everything about Shy Tuttle. I thought he was continuing to progress and get better and better and better and really had developed into one our playmakers on defense. Everyone else, we expect fully back. Jashon Robertson, Mack Crowder, Brett Kendrick, we fully anticipate them being back. Marquez North will practice today."
(On Steve Spurrier's retirement)
"You just said it, the legacy. He's a legend. He's a living legend. He's brought so much to the coaching profession, he's brought so much to the game of football, and he's brought so much to the Southeastern Conference. I've really enjoyed the last couple years, having the opportunity to compete against a legend. I have the utmost respect for him. We've had some great conversations. I grew up a big Tampa Bay Bandits fan, so every time we get together we talk Bandit ball, we talk about those days. Ironically, a couple weeks ago, my wife was cleaning out the basement and she found a framed 8x10 photo of a game program that Coach Spurrier had signed to me and autographed. So, he's meant so much to me from a personal note of really watching him, and then also from our profession as well. We're going to miss him."
(On if Shy Tuttle's ankle injury is a ligament tear)
"Yes."
(On Jason Croom's status)
"Continues to progress. We're going to try to get him in to some individual periods here in the next couple days and see how it progresses. I can't really give you any information right now because he hasn't done much to this point. He is getting better. This bye week will be big for him in the next couple days."
(On Curt Maggitt's status)
"He's coming along. He had an MRI. He's still not where he can participate or anything like that, so he's still out an extended period of time. Time frame, still do not know. Possibly the last game of the year. He may not play, it's all based again on the recovery of his body. He's progressing, but he's not anywhere [near] a point where he can play football right now. He's getting to that point, but he's not anywhere close to that. But, we do see progress."
(On Jack Jones and Chance Hall)
"I would say learning by trial-and-error. They did a very good job. I thought they came into a very challenging situation, a very difficult situation versus a very, very talented defensive front. First year players, I think the thing that sums it up, when we talked to Chance [Hall] he said, 'Coach, everything was really fast.' For what they were able to do, I thought they handled it remarkably. I thought they did a good job. But it's that consistency, and you're only going to get it through reps and through practice. The individuals that went out, they've been progressing. Brett Kendrick, the strides that he was making. Jashon Robertson continues to get better. Mack [Crowder] played very good football for us before he went out. So, our entire offensive front continues to get better. We all know the challenge we're going to have here in a couple weeks, arguably the best defensive front in the country. So we're going to be challenged, big, physical, but we've also played some very good fronts. I would rank Florida up there as good as anyone as well. But that whole unit continues to progress. I thought Coleman Thomas may have played his best game of the year. I thought he did some very good things as well. Sorry, I don't want to keep jumping around, but I'd really be remiss if I didn't bring up Dylan Wiesman as well. He was the winner of 'My All.' We have a weekly award of the individual who gives their all. Dylan won that award and very deservingly so. He's one of those individuals that's been battling through nagging injuries. He played physical and he helped us play winning football. I've been very, very proud of him and he's really stepped it up. He's a very tough young man and that showed on Saturday."
(On if Justin Martin will get more first-team reps)
"Yeah, we'll continue to proceed with Justin [Martin]. Justin's kind of going through that learning curve right now, just like Chance [Hall] and Jack [Jones]. But any live game repetitions, especially in critical moments of the game, are going to be critical for him. He continues to progress. This bye week, this work week, is very important to him to get him the quality reps that he needs to get. But I've been very encouraged by what we see. He definitely has the skill set. Now, it's just the live game repetitions."
(On if he could use a rotation of players on the offensive line moving forward)
"I think, first of all, it's based on how far each individual comes from and do they earn that playing time. I'm not opposed to playing a number of individuals. I think I read an article where the New England Patriots a couple weeks ago had 10 different offensive line lineups, in rotating players through. But, this week is going to be big for a number of individuals. I think it's how they progress. I think it's how the overall health of the offensive line progresses as well. But when we talk about being at the halfway point, of position groups that have taken tremendous strides, the first position group I would point to is the offensive line. I see them getting better and better and better in terms of pad level, overall technique, the ability to finish and sustain blocks. But I think it's based on the health and how every individual comes around. So I'll know a little bit more probably in the next week."
(On the difference in Josh Dobbs' play Saturday compared to the rest of the season)
"Well, first of all, Josh [Dobbs] had that great will to win. He held his teammates accountable. He had great energy on the sideline. He put the ball a number of times where only our receiver could catch the football. I thought he was very determined. He managed the game very well. He made good decisions in the throw game. He made good decisions in the run game with all the different options that present him on every run play. So, he's been playing very consistently, but I just thought his overall demeanor, his will to win, his demanding of his teammates, the confidence that he showed in them, the confidence that he showed in himself - I was very, very pleased and very proud of him with his performance. Like I told you, he willed this football team to win."
(On if the up-tempo offense depends more on the play of the quarterback than other offenses)
"In terms of playing with great speed and tempo on offense, we ran 90 plays. That was a big part of the gameplan, we wanted to do some things vertically, we wanted to do some things horizontally in terms of our schematics. We wanted to play fast. We wanted to push it a little bit in terms of tempo. I thought our players did a great job of really executing the gameplan. I think in any offense, whether you're a huddle offense, whether you're an up-tempo offense, everything is based on the quarterback. We talk about the quarterback usually gets too much praise when we win and too much blame when we lose, but that's part of playing quarterback. They're the individual who touches the ball on every possession. They're the coach on the field. So I don't really think it's determined by any offensive system that you use, it's a quarterback-driven system. I know in our offense it's a quarterback-driven offense and Josh is playing very well right now."
(On young offensive linemen learning from Kendal Vickers' maturity and being ready after so much game action)
"So, first of all to answer your question on Kendal Vickers, he's a warrior. He's an individual, you talk about a program player, a player that has developed in your football program, I believe when we recruited him and he was a late signee if you remember in the spring, I believe he was about 230 pounds and now he is almost 290 pounds. The only way you do that is through strong commitment in your diet, and in the weight room he's a leader and he showed some great determination and toughness in that game because he battled through injuries and when the game was on the line he wanted to be on the field and making the difference. So, I can't say enough about Kendal Vickers and his development in our football program. He deserves a lot of credit because he's worked hard for that.
"In terms of the competition in the offensive line,, absolutely they played a very physical front, a very athletic front, one of the better defenses in our conference. Anytime you can get live game repetitions against that type of competition, you can try and simulate game like experience in practice and we try to do that, but it's never as much as real game experience. Do I think they will value that, I think they will learn from it and I think it will make them better from that. And I know they gained some confidence from that as well."
(On Shy Tuttle being out and what changes he sees in the tackle position)
"That'll be ongoing to see who can step up in that fifth spot. Again, we are very, very limited in regards to our health there so our development is going to be critical. We're going to play the guys that have played, but we'll continue to work through that throughout this course this week at practice, throughout the course the week. Quay could be an individual that gets more valuable repetitions, so this week is very very big for Quay and see how he can develop. But again, that's an area in recruitment that we got to continue to grow and develop. That's what we talked at the beginning of the year, you know, we still don't have that competitive depth across the board at all nine positions groups. The only way you address those situations is to continue to develop and recruit and that's a situation where all our players are developing there we just need to continue to recruit numbers as well because, like we know, this is a line of scrimmage league."
(On who else will be an option besides Quay Picou)
"That's basically it. We may look at Dimarya Mixon, we may look at Kyle Phillips some, moving them around. Maybe go to a three down front as well. Maybe do some more three downs. We're kind of seeing more of that on offense anyway in our defenses to the point from a system's standpoint that we have the luxury to be able to do that more three down so you may see that as well."
(On anticipating Kyle Phillips to be ready soon)
"I do. I anticipate Kyle to practice today, yes."
(On the attitude of the players going into the bye week)
"I may sound scripted or rehearsed, but you know me. I always tell it like it is. It's been the same. It's been business as usual. Obviously, there's no substitute for winning. There's no substitute for positivity. Our players gained a lot of confidence. They had a lot of energy yesterday. I thought they were excited to come to meetings. I liked their approach, but [it's been] business as usual and preparing, just going through that checklist from a coaching standpoint and a team standpoint. This week is very big. I think any time you win, it makes preparation that much better, because that's what you work for. I would say the whole temperament [has improved], yes, but it's always business as usual.
"Like I always say, `Praise and blame, it's all the same. Just keep your head down and keep working every day, and you'll like your body of work.' The way our players responded in some very trying moments on Saturday speaks volumes of our competitive character that we have and our leadership.
"I spoke about the 19 players from the state of Georgia, but one individual who has really stepped up in the last couple weeks in the absence of Curt Maggitt has been Brian Randolph. He's really stepped up into a leadership role. He's being very vocal. He's making others around him accountable, and he's really welcomed that title of a leader. I've seen a complete change in him in terms of being more vocal and being more outspoken, and that's been great to see. Our players have fed off of that."
(On his assessment of the team and staff so far this season)
"Progressing. I think our football team continues to grow and get better, and better, and better. We've been behind a little bit in terms of injuries, but we've had individuals step up game in and game out. We have to do a much better job as coaches of coaching and teaching the fundamentals.
"We have to be a better tackling team on defense. We have to start taking the ball away more on defense. We had a couple opportunities Saturday [against Georgia], and we weren't able to do that. We need more ball disruptions. We need to take the ball away more. Obviously [Georgia's 70-yard] punt return sticks in you every day, and we're going to go back to the basics of covering punts - our body position, our landmarks on the returner. I would say third down conversions and red zone opportunities, cashing them in to touchdowns. When you look at the Georgia game, we were able to come away with 7 points as opposed to three points. The games that we've struggled, we've had to kick field goals in the red zone.
"We're really evaluating everything. It starts with myself. It starts with us as a coaching staff. It's everyone taking accountability for their own self-determination, and working to be better in all that we do. As a coach, you always evaluate yourself after every single game. That's how you learn. There's always things you can do better. We have to continue to get better - first and foremost with myself, the coaching staff, and then continue to progress with every individual player on our team, and collectively with nine positions and three units. I do see us making progress each and every day in our football program."
(On how his family embraces his job as a head football coach)
"I think it's more so about the families. It's the families that are involved. It's your wife, it's your children. It's not a hobby. It's not a job. It's our life. You live it each and every day. With us, [my wife] Barb becomes part of the fabric. She's another mother to 105 other young adults on our football team. You build great relationships with parents and players, and you hurt.
"There is a human side to it. You want your players to succeed, but I think it's more with our families. My kids going to school on a Monday after a loss is very, very challenging. Very difficult. Barb being in the community [is difficult], but that also comes with the territory.
"I always have a long talk with my three boys about what it entails. Especially having a freshman here at Tennessee, we had to have a long talk. I said, `There's going to be things that you don't like to hear about your dad. You just have to keep your head down.' I think it helps him mature. It's the same thing with having a ninth grader in high school and the things he hears. My nine year old is a little immune to it right now.
"That comes with the territory, but also I think this is a very rewarding profession. [It's great] when you can change lives, when you can have an impact in the lives of young adults and teach them life lessons, and teach them a work ethic, improve character and demand from them, and when you can see them make a change. The definition of coaching is creating change.
"I thought Preston Williams, from the previous week to last week, made monumental changes. He really, really improved. He was so proud of himself. We always give game tests, and he went and answered every single position in the receiver room's test. He did it. He had everything drawn up, and to me, that's progress. That's coaching. That's making a difference, and I see that in our football team.
"As much adversity and things that come with this profession, it's a very rewarding profession. You have to love what you're doing, and I love coaching. I love being the head football coach at the University of Tennessee, and I love that responsibility."
(On the assessment of the team from an opposing coach's point of view)
"Well, I'm not going to give any coaches any favors, to give them that breakdown. We have to look at anything and everything. All great teams, all teams that execute have tendencies. Sometimes you can get to a point where you try to do so much [with] tendency breakers that you get outside of what you do best.
"I always ask our coaches, `What do we own on offense? What do our players execute? What can we do that fits their skillset?' [I ask them] the same thing defensively. `What do we do well? What are our deficiencies? How are we going to improve? How are we going to continue to grow and expand upon the things that we do well?' That's what this week is for. This is a very, very busy week. You try to research everything.
"Again, teams that execute are going to have tendencies, because you do what you do. If you do what you do and you do it well, you're going to have success. You build off those tendencies, but that's everything we're looking at."
(On what he remembers about Steve Spurrier)
"First of all, growing up a big Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan, I remember No. 11 for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I was a very young age at that time. Same thing in coaching - very, very competitive. He has that fiery approach.
"I think he's great for the game because you never know what he's going to say. He's brutally honest. He has a great personality, and he's not afraid to tell you what he thinks. The many nights that he and I spent together in Destin at the SEC meetings, and hanging out and talking football, those are some of the most rewarding interactions I've had with an individual. I think he was healthy for our conference. I know you all in the media loved him because you never knew what was coming next. That's part of the aura of Steve Spurrier.
"When you look at it, he was a winner, a great, great competitor, and meant a lot to this great game, both in the professional ranks and the collegiate level as well."
